ucd

Well its November and time to reorg the corporation again:)
We are looking at ways to integrate UCD with Business Development. Specifically we are looking at using methods such as K. Holtzblatt's Rapid Contextual Design to develop a new process, rather than a product, that creates a positive user experience for customers transitioning from a legacy application to a new generation product. We are thinking of doing contextual inquiry to understand the decision process customers go through so we can identify what makes them decide to transistion, what are the pain points etc.

I was at Leisa Reicheit's talk at the Adaptive Path conference
(http://tinyurl.com/28mfmh) and she spoke of User Centered Design as a
process. This is not the first time I've heard it and I'm puzzled
because I've always thought of it as a Design philosophy. Am I missing
something here?

I'm working on a little side project at the moment that involves
collecting as many reasons as I can come across as to why
people/project teams decide not to use User Centred Design
methodologies when designing/developing projects.

We have the obvious ones down (not enough time, not enough money, no
UCD 'expert' on staff), but I'm sure you've come across a lot of more
or less rational explanations for not using UCD.

Does anyone have experiences mixing design/development methodologies
UCD/Contextual Design with an Agile/XP process?

The company I'm working with is implanting an XP link methodology Scrum,
which is very focused on optimizing internally requirements gathering,
design and engineering deliverables, but lacks a formalized collaborative
involvement with the end user.

Contextual/UCD on the other hand lacks detailed best practices in rapid
iterative development from an engineering perspective.

Does anyone have any experience marrying the best of both methodologies, or
does one encompass the

This is a question more from overall product strategy point of view.
The scenario is a typical product redesign initiative with full UCD
recommendations. This involves the whole 9 yards with close
interactions with users. Also, the same team is assigned to carry out
research for training needs too. This is causing some to be skeptical
about the approach.